The Spirit of God seeks harmony in fellowship.  He directs us to work through our willingness for His good pleasure.  We set the limit for this. The Spirit never drives us or forces us but leads us. It is up to us to follow where He leads. 

Where there is confusion reveals that another spirit is at work. James 3:14-16. Either the confusion comes from within our hearts or from outside. To gain clarity, we must be careful in monitoring ourselves. We should observe what comes out from our heart through our words, thoughts, and actions. Matt 15:18-20.

The Spirit illuminates the path of anyone who follows Jesus Christ.  He shines His light in our hearts continuously so we may deal with things that need to be dealt with.  We all have hearts of flesh and are not immune to the wickedness it contains.  Jer 17:9-10. This is why we need to live in honesty before the Lord, to ‘see our heart and know what is in it’ – so we may participate with Him as He shows us what needs to go.   Our life in Christ is about exchange.  We give our hearts (of flesh) to Him and we receive His, born of the Spirit. Though we are imparted with this grand gift, upon the day we fully surrender, we gain its fullness little by little. We get, what we are willing to give and is a lifelong process.  If we refuse to give our heart to the Lord, He will not take it from us. 

The Spirit of God will always be working in us.  Why?  So we become more like the Son of God. It is up to us to join Him. If we have not yet experienced this process, it indicates we are not tuned in to the Lord and His purposes for us. Further to this, we may have a stronghold. 

Strongholds are areas in our lives that have been formed when we do not resolve trauma we have incurred.  Strongholds are a natural defense system our flesh builds in us.  Whenever we allow the flesh to rule us it will be evident in what is described as the works of the flesh. Gal 5:19-21.  We can see if this is true by paying attention to how we deal with conflict, pressure, stress, and uncertainty. We need to ask the Lord for guidance because we have grown familiar with these works and may have become ‘normal’ to us. 

When any of us feel threatened we will go into high gear to find a place of safety.   How we address the threat, whether real or perceived, will determine much. We can choose to rely on our flesh and carnal understanding, or we can seek the Lord’s help.  As believers in Christ, we live according not to our flesh but to the Spirit. Romans 8.

When trauma occurs to us, it opens a door for a stronghold. What happens is we gain a perceived friend. His name is Mr. Stronghold. On the day of our trauma, Mr. Stronghold came in to save the day. He imparted control mechanisms that we can use. This helps ensure the trauma does not happen again. One of the outcomes is gaining a new filter. This filter skews our perception of reality. It skews because we now listen to what our stronghold tells us. Our mind is tuned into our stronghold. Even though we are a believer, the stronghold is (unknowingly) above the Lord and who we fear and hear. Instead of questioning what is going on inside of us, in our hearts, we will more readily question others. An exaggerated example of how this looks is if we were literally on fire. Someone tries to tell us we are burning. We will accuse this person of lying. We will say they want to cause us harm. 

The stronghold is not our friend. It will daily remind us how we are not measuring up. It tells us we need to do this or that. We are just not worth much unless we keep with the rigid program it dictates.  Many addictions, obsessions, and mental disorders stem from having to deal with and manage our strongholds. 

We must be willing to know the truth. Our only hope is to follow Jesus, who is the truth, and freely gives us insight, leaving Mr. Stronghold behind once and for all.  We must recognize we have a wounded heart and give our hurt hearts to the Lord and be willing to receive His heart in return -and to forsake Mr Stronghold and all his lies.

Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:31-32